Armenians hold onto part of their history in central Turkey

(This article was first published on July 26, 2010 for the Study Abroad section at Global Post. View the original article here.) KAYSERI, Turkey — Rows of homes that used to be part of Kayseri’s Armenian quarter and housed up to 400 families are now dilapidated and lay empty or are filled with squatters.  The district is a symbol of the tragic history between Armenians and Turks during the... [Read more]

Climbing Turkey’s “Cotton Castle”

(This article was first published on July 26, 2010 for the Study Abroad section at Global Post. View the original article here.) PAMUKKALE, Turkey — At the edge the Pamukkale village, visitors encounter a mesa covered in a white rock that I still can’t convince my parents is not ice. Calcium deposits created by flowing spring water over time created the cloud-like formations. For 400,000 years,... [Read more]

Family says son killed on flotilla was a “humanitarian,” not a “thug”

(This article was first published on June 25, 2010 for the Study Abroad section at Global Post.  View the original article here.  The video was taken on June 4, 2010 during the funeral of Furkan Dogan in Kayseri.) Furkan Dogan had just scored so high on Turkey’s rigorous college entrance exams that he could have attended any college of his choosing. But before he started school, he did what a... [Read more]

Bath day

Suds, bubbles, and Bobby Darin’s “Splish, splash” are typically what come to mind when I think about taking a bath.  Turkey has turned that upside down. Turks continue a long standing tradition of bath houses that first came to prominence in the Roman Empire.  Today, these bath houses feature hot rooms of marble where men and women  wash themselves and are washed by attendants. ... [Read more]

Thanks for the memories (This is not the end)

The sun has set on my last day in Kayseri.   It’s 12:30AM in Turkey (5:30 PM the day before in Boston).  In three hours, I’ll take my final Turkish Taxi and have my last wild ride during this journey in the place where East meets West.  I’ve shared a number of good memories, some of which I’ve reflected on or wrote about already, and many more I still have to put to paper. ... [Read more]